Allen Barkkume

Hidden Scents Allen Barkkume

Hidden Scents will vaporize you into an aromatic molecule, tickling the brain-fingers in your nose. A cacophony of receptor neurons activating and inhibiting, you become a recognized pattern and burst towards the limbic superhighway of the primitive organism. You are an emotion, a virtual body-state stored in memory, coming to life once again in the act of perception. In a breath, you are exhaled, washed away into the lexicographical maelstrom of the Language of Smell. Hidden Scents explores our consensual reality, and reveals its inherent ambiguity. On the surface, however, it is a book about the olfactive system, not only of the human but of human culture. In the concluding series of essays, olfaction is used as a paradigm for navigating issues on the threshold of public discourse: space and dimensionality, artificial intelligence, quantum theory, and the future of the internet. Be warned - you might never smell the same again.